CPU+GPU not breaking a sweat

[nicky9499]

Hi all,

 

I recently jumped from FS9 to P3Dv2 and spent a few days tuning it and bring over whatever addons I could. It's running quite nicely now I find, with REX, a nice airport, PMDG 747, nothing too fancy. Holds a steady 20FPS in the VC with most sliders to the right using the following hardware also nothing too fancy;

 

i7-3770K@4Ghz, NH-D14

Corsair 16GB DDR3-1866

Gigabyte GTX770 4GB OC

P3D has its own 120GB SATA SSD plugged into a SATA6 port

27"+24" displays both at 1080p, single display performance mode, P3D in fullscreen

Windows 7 Ultimate x64

 

Today I unticked the "blank other displays" option, ran HWMonitor on the side screen and noticed that the CPU and GPU were barely breaking a sweat - ambling along between 30% and 60% load. However if I push the settings any further (ORBX airport detail, MSAA, max autogen etc) it starts to microstutter a bit.

 

Only minimal CFG tweaks done, FFTF=0.01, Vsync off and internally locked to 20FPS.

 

Is there any way to push the hardware a bit more?

[vgbaron]

first - remember FFTF has a range of 0.1 to 0.99. Setting 0.01 just defaults to 0.1.

 

The demands on the GPU and CPU are made as needed there's really nothing you can do to change that. Playing with the AffinityMask can move the load around . Also remember tha LM has offloaded a lot of processing that used to be done by the CPU to the GPU which will result in more balanced loading.

 

If you are thinking that more utilization of the CPU/GPU will result in better performance - that's not going to happen.

 

Vic

[nicky9499]

Thank you Vic. In other words this is as good as it gets on my current hardware? I was worried something somewhere was bottlenecking.

[vgbaron]

Set up a flight in your most detailed a/c, fly over a dense area like LAX, JFK or some of the UK airports. Set it up for heavy clouds and very low visibility. Turn on volumetric fog.

 

Watch your CPU and GPU then.

 

Overall, your performance and IQ come from balanced settings, not raw power. You COULD have 100% CPU and GPU utilization and have a stutter, blurry mess - or have a balanced load and enjoy your flights.

 

Not as much tweaking as FSX but more adjustments of the settings to find that balance.

 

Vic